Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Expanding the national geothermal data system

We're in the last day of the Geothermal Resources Council annual meeting in Reno, with an exhibit booth in the Geothermal Energy Association's Expo, giving demonstrations of the National Geothermal Data System (www.geothermaldata.org).

AZGS manages the NGDS on behalf of the rest of the state geological surveys, with 65+ data providers in all 50 states contributing over 10 million data records currently. Any geothermal energy project funded by the US Dept. of Energy has to make their data publicly available through the NGDS. Most projects chose to send their data to the Geothermal Data Repository node on NGDS. GDR is run by the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado.

We've been meeting with leaders of various research projects in the Play Fairway Analysis and FORGE programs to discuss adding their growing reams of data into NGDS. We've also had conversations with representatives from East African countries about supporting their data management programs for the booming geothermal development in that region. [Right, AZGS' Steve Richard -right- talks with Andrew Palmateer with the US Energy Association's East Africa Geothermal Program, and Rick Zehner with Geothermal Development Associates, about data needs in East Africa]